Exploring the Differences in Students’ Behavioral Engagement With Quizzes and Its Impact on their Performance in a Flipped CS1 Course

There is an increase in the adoption of flipped classroom pedagogy for introductory programming (CS1) courses. In a flipped course, students watch the content videos and complete an accountability quiz before the class, then do active learning activities during the class. The role of students’ behavioral engagement and its impact on learning outcomes is widely studied in education, but little is known about its effect in flipped CS1 courses. This paper analyzes factors related to students’ behavioral engagement with quizzes, such as how much time they spend on quizzes, when they choose to submit the quizzes, and how consistently they space their weekly quiz submissions over a fifteen-week semester. Firstly, group differences based on GPA, gender and prior programming experience (PPE) are explored to understand how behavioral engagement varies among different student populations. Secondly, we analyze the association of behavioral engagement with students’ performance using exam averages. We find that behavioral metrics do not vary based on GPA, PPE, and gender. Further, we find that while the time taken on quizzes and weekly consistency is not correlated with students’ performance, students who submit the quizzes earlier tend to have statistically higher exam averages than those who complete them near the deadlines. These results align with earlier findings and will help instructors understand students’ behavioral approaches to flipped CS1 courses, which can help them tailor their instructions accordingly.